SO HOT!!!

Hello Everyone:

Oh my goodness, it gets far too hot when fans go off at night. I would have never guessed that any place could be this hot and humid!!!! It is going to make for a lot of awesome stories about sweat and sleepless nights and never enough water to drink and sleepless nights....and mice...most of you are in snow right now.  Please don't complain.  I am SO HOT!!!

 

1. There are things here called ball floats - fried dough!!!! It is so amazing and so unhealthy but they are cheap and fill your stomach. 

2. Eating food here can actually leave you tired because all food here expands in your stomach and makes you wish to be asleep (like Thanksgiving constantly but not as yummy). It is hard at times to enjoy all the food when it makes working more difficult.

3. People will not let males wash dishes here unless they are single. If they have a wife or a sister, she will do it all. It is hard to get people to let you do their dishes when culture prohibits it all!!!!!  But, I guess I should enjoy it.....watch out Molly and Dorothy.....when I get home I will be pretty used to having my dishes done for me.....

I love you all. Today I wanted to thank you all for what you have been doing for me and for my mission efforts. I know that most, if not all, of you have continued to pray for people to find the truth. I want to let you know that it is making a difference! 

To prove my point, I want to bring us a story that happened this past week: As my companion and I were getting to our last lesson of the day, we came to the knowledge that the person we were trying to meet with was not around. As we attempted to find out what to do, a lot of small children ran up and started trying to get our attention. After pleasing them with laughs and some silly play time, we started walking away, when out of no where the man we were trying to meet with showed up! He told us to wait inside a different building then we had met him the first time but as he sat with us, a young woman walked up and joined in our lesson. Me and my companion talked about the actions of Jesus Christ in this Life, the Apostacy and eventually the restoration of it all. As we talked, though tired and a bit frustrated with the children making noise and many other emotions, I noticed that the Spirit was so strong. 

If any of you know me, you know that I struggle with feeling the Spirit (Maybe we all do at times) however, I could not deny that feeling in the lesson. As we closed, both my companion and I used questions they had asked (some really far out there) to relate back to how God will communicate with all of us as we need Him and in the manner that will help us the most. We testified of the feeling we were having and the truth of our message. We even had them talk about what they were feeling and were able to teach them further about how the Holy Ghost works. It was such a powerful lesson and I wanted you all to know that I could not have done it without you all and your faith and prayers for me and the people I am meeting.

There are times when I know I am too tired and too frustrated to really access the Spirit and then when someone starts to talk I forget all about those things. Your prayers are really helping me and the people I teach, I have always found it strange how prayer works like that. Even when you are over half way across the world, you can ask God to help someone else and they can receive the power of your prayers. It just proves to me further the actuality of God. He is there and He listens.

As I have studied how to talk about prayer I have come to learn so much more about it. If you know the movie Bedtime Stories, you will remember that the man in the story tries to force the kids to tell certain stories to him to make them come true the next day.  Only when the man listens to the children and fills the stories with their ideas and not his own, do the stories turn out to be real.  This makes me think a bit about our relationship with our Heavenly Father and how we pray to him.

When we pray we are not forcing our will on God, but conforming to His will (God's). 

Pray for what you know is right. DO not pray to elimate anyone's agency because that will not be granted but instead, use your prayer to soften their heart. People have choice, so when you pray, pray that they will be prepared and found by the missionaries! Lets get some teamwork going!!!!

Love you

Elder Edison